JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL 



Part IL— PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 

 No. III.— 1877. 



VII. — On an apparently undescrihed Weasel from YarJcand. — By W. T. 

 Blan^ford, F. R. S., &c. 



Amongst the collections brought by Dr. Stoliczka £iom Eastern Tur- 

 kestan was the skin of a weasel which had been kept in confinement. 

 Judging from the skin alone, the animal appeared chiefly to difEer from the 

 common European weasel in colour, and it was difficult to say how far this 

 dilference was due to the circumstances under which the individual had been 

 kept. Although I strongly suspected that it was a distinct species, still I 

 thought it safer not to form conclusions from a single skin, and in the list 

 of species J. A. S. B., 1875, Vol. XLIV, Pt. 2, p. 106, 1 noted the specimen 

 as Mustela vulgaris ? var. 



A year later Dr. Scully brought from Turkestan another skin of the 

 same weasel, but the second specimen had belonged to a male wild indivi- 

 dual. This skin was also entrusted to me together with some other inter- 

 esting specimens for description, and I regret that other work has prevented 

 my noticing it sooner. On comparing this second specimen more carefully 

 with 'M. vulgaris, I found that it differed not only in colour, but in size, 

 being a much larger animal. The length measured on the fresh carcase by 

 Dr. Scully, shews that the Yarkand weasel is nearly as large as an ermine, 

 whilst the tail, the vertebrae of which are for the most part preserved, ap- 

 pears to be proportionally longer than in the common weasel. The weight 

 and some other details are also carefully recorded on the label. The 

 name in Eastern Turkestan is Aglia malcan. 

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